


all my resolve dissolves

by CamsthiSky



Category: Avengers: Infinity War - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 10:25:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14494905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamsthiSky/pseuds/CamsthiSky
Summary: Peter can't stop thinking about what happened on Titan.





	all my resolve dissolves

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take of the aftermath of Peter's psyche after the Infinity War mess gets resolved

_“I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go. Mr. Stark, please,” Peter chokes out. “Please, I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go.”_

_He holds onto Mr. Stark, like if he holds on hard enough, it’ll be enough to keep him here. Tony holds him right back._

_…_

_“I’m sorry.”_

_Then he’s gone, and it feels like an eternity before he comes back._

* * *

Peter wakes up struggling. Away from the weightlessness. Away from the feeling crumbling, both inside and out. Away from the falling that never stops, even when he knows he should be dead and gone by now.

Even while he fights his tangled sheets, gasping for breath, he still feels like he’s dissolving into thousands of pieces. He scrabbles at his arms, at his skin, at his sheets, and his face. He tries to ground himself in the reality that he’s _here._ Tangible. On Earth. At the Avengers compound.

Peter Parker _exists._

It’s not enough, though. He can’t breathe. He _can’t breathe._

“Fri—” Peter can’t finish calling out to Mr. Stark’s AI. His chest tightens. His lungs aren’t working.

Finally, he wins the battle of the bedclothes and stumbles his way over to the door. He aims to open it, but he’s too unsteady on his feet, and he stumbles to the side, his shoulder hitting the wall. Too weak to stand anymore, he slides down the wall, reaching an arm out uselessly to the door. He doesn’t have his web shooters on him, and he can’t possibly reach the door this way.

“Mr. Parker,” FRIDAY says, and the gloom of his room brightens to a moderate dimness. It doesn’t help in any way, except for now Peter can see himself having a panic attack in the mirror on the other side of the room. “You appear to be in respiratory distress.”

Peter’s too light-headed to answer. Everything is going fuzzy. He’s vaguely aware of FRIDAY continuing to speak, but he doesn’t take in any of the words. The world tilts out of focus, and he can’t keep his head up anymore. His forehead thuds against the wall.

Hyperventilating. He’s hyperventilating. Panic attack.

Voices surround him, and there’s a hand on his cheek. Someone’s moving him, too. There’s another hand carding through his hair, a familiar voice murmuring to him. The wall’s replaced with warmth, and it’s only then that the panic and fear and feeling of dissolving let up enough for him to take a sustainable breath.

“There you go. Now let’s do it again,” the voice is saying. The hand in his hair doesn’t stop. “Keep breathing for me, kid. One after another.”

Peter does as he’s told. One breath after another. And another, and another, until he’s breathing semi-normally. His eyelids flutter closed, and he melts into the hold that Mr. Stark—and it _is_ Mr. Stark, he knows that now—has on him. Every part of his being feels exhausted, and he wishes he could just _sleep_ for once, instead of waking up every night on the verge of a panic attack, feeling like he’s about to crumble away because they messed up and _let Thanos win._

“You’re okay, kid,” Tony says. It sounds exactly how he’d said it on Titan, and before Peter knows it, there’s a burning behind his eyes. His chest is tightening again, and his breath hitches. Tony just holds him closer as he sobs. Keeps saying, “You’re okay.”

Peter cries, and Tony holds him.

They don’t move for a long time.

* * *

By the time Peter stops crying, Mr. Stark’s rearranged them into a more comfortable position. Peter’s face is smooshed into Mr. Stark’s shoulder. He’s practically on Mr. Stark’s lap, and he can’t even be embarrassed about how he’s basically being held like he’s five instead of fifteen.

If he moved away now, he’d probably start panicking again.

“You know,” Mr. Stark starts, his voice quiet and gentle in a way Peter’s only heard a few times, “I’m not really one to do this, but I think we need to talk.”

Peter’s stomach drops to his feet and he hides his face further into Mr. Stark’s shoulder, as if could block out the words. Block out the _world_ , even. Peter would like that. To just turn off the world for a moment so he could catch his breath and prepare for the next thing that’s going to try and destroy him both inside and out.

“Kid,” Mr. Stark says. Peter doesn’t answer. A little sharper, _“Peter.”_

“I don’t want to,” Peter chokes out, his hands catching Mr. Stark’s shirt. He just holds on, desperate for the contact. Desperate to keep himself grounded. “I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to forget.”

Mr. Stark is silent for a moment, and Peter makes himself just breathe. He counts. One, two, three—all the way to one hundred and eighteen before Mr. Stark speaks again.

“Your aunt called me today,” Mr. Stark tells him, and Peter tenses.

Aunt May hasn’t been on great terms with Mr. Stark since she’d found out Peter was Spider-Man, and she’d been hysterical after Peter went missing during the Fight. After a ginormous argument—lots of name-calling, lots of apologies, and lots of crying—Mr. Stark and May had come to an agreement: Peter was allowed to be Spider-Man, with a few rules and curfews in place, along with check-ins with both Tony and May, mandatory medical checks, and formal training with the Avengers on weekends.

Three days later, and here Peter is, at the Avengers compound, on a Friday night, having a panic attack. Just like he’d had a panic attack every night for the past week and a half since they’d all settled back down from space.

Or, in Peter’s case, space _dust._

“She says you’ve been having really bad panic attacks,” Mr. Stark continues. “And she wanted to know if I could help you.” Mr. Stark pauses, and then he asks quietly, “Will you let me help you, kid?”

Peter’s crying again before he really knows it.

“Sometimes, it’s hard to believe I’m still real,” Peter whispers, his voice thick with terror and tears. “I didn’t want to go, Mr. Stark. But I did. I crumbled into pieces, and it sorta seems like not all of me was put back together again.”

Peter doesn’t know where to go from there, but he’s sobbing now, tears trailing down his cheeks, one after the other. He’s getting Mr. Stark’s t-shirt all gross and wet with his crying, but Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to care. His hold on Peter just seems to grow tighter.

They take a moment, neither saying a word, and Peter’s sobs fill the room.

Finally, Peter calms down enough to ask, “Am I ever going to get over this?”

“Probably not,” Mr. Stark answers, and Peter can feel him swallow. “In my experience, it’s not something you just _get over._ ”

“So what do I do then?” Peter wonders, shoulders shuddering.

“You get people,” Mr. Stark says simply. “You get people, and you protect them, and in turn, they’ll protect you from all of those worries and fears inside your head, tricking you into believing that you’ll never feel happy again.”

Peter sniffs. “What if my people keep dying? Or going away?”

“Your aunt isn’t going anywhere,” Mr. Stark says firmly. “And neither am I. We’re here to stay, kid. You’ve got to believe that or you’re not going to get through this. You got me?”

“Yeah,” Peter says.

He can’t tell if Mr. Stark is getting uncomfortable the longer they sit there, but Peter remembers how much Mr. Stark didn’t really like being touched. _“We’re not there yet,”_ he’d said. Peter wonders if that’s where they are now, or if this is just a panic attack thing. If he wakes up in the morning, will Mr. Stark still be willing to give him a hug, or is this going to end the moment he closes his eyes.

But maybe that’s something he should be worrying about right now. Or maybe it’s the _only_ thing he should be worrying about. It’s hard to tell anymore.

“I can hear that big brain of yours whirring,” Mr. Stark murmurs, and Peter jumps at the suddenness of the sound. He blinks up at Mr. Stark’s face and receives a raise of the eyebrow back. “You alright, kiddo?”

“Yeah,” Peter says again, burying his face back into Mr. Stark’s shoulder.

“Try again,” is Mr. Stark’s flat answer.

“No,” Peter whispers.

“That’s okay,” Mr. Stark says, dropping his chin on top of Peter’s head. “We’ll get you there.”

They lapse into silence again, and this time, it’s a lot more comfortable. There’s less panic permeating the air, and Peter feels his eyelids drooping, even though about the last thing he wants is to sleep.

Eventually, his body betrays him. He relaxes fully against Mr. Stark, and his eyelids slip close. He’s right on the edge of sleep, tipping towards unconscious, and just before he plunges into dreamland, he hears a soft voice humming something that sounds like a lullaby.

He’s asleep before he can tell where it’s coming from, though. But he sleeps throughout the entire rest of the night, and wakes up in his bed the next morning, feeling a little bit more together than he has since he’d died on Titan.


End file.
